Russia ready to join OPEC's new output freeze deal

Russia was ready to gradually reduce its oil output by up to 300,000 barrels per day starting from January 2017, the minister said, adding that Moscow hoped other non-OPEC countries would also join the reduction efforts.

He confirmed that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC producers were expected to meet in early December in the Qatar capital of Doha to negotiate a memorandum on oil production freeze.

Earlier on Wednesday at a meeting in Vienna, the OPEC reached a deal to cut the cartel's oil output by 1.2 million barrels per day from Jan. 1, 2017, with a ceiling of oil production at 32.5 million barrels per day.[Xinhua/china.org.cn]

EL Kaos UT

The UN has imposed a 2013 deadline for the submission of scientific claims to the Arctic seabed. It is the precursor to a resource boom which would see Canada, the US, Russia, Norway and Greenland all attempt to exploit the region's resources.